forgetyourusedtobe | Є024 video

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I know some of you are probably sick of hearing things like this, but if anybody needs help with anything - even if you just want company or something - let me know. I know I could probably use some company myself.

private - Horatio.

I just want to say thanks for everything you did down there. And for treating me like a person.

private - Scott.

Can we talk?

[Normally she'd go to Dean about this, but with the way he is? She isn't really sure she wants him to know she's a vampire right now. And she'd consider talking to Mal, but they don't exactly have the same kind of problems.]

That last port was just messed up and I don't... [She almost says she doesn't have anyone to talk to about it, but that's not true. Abigail would probably listen if she did, but she doesn't feel this is something to dump in her lap either.] I don't really have anyone else I wanna talk to about it.

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I don't know about that. I think everybody on board's friendly enough on their own terms.

It's just a little hard to always accept friendship when you're new here.

It doesn't get easier to accept it. Here, it probably gets harder...there are floods, people leave without warning. It's safest to get as many friends as you can.

[Not that he's done that, but the logic is sound. Get lots of allies, and at least one of them will stick around.]

In my experience, that's just life.

[People leave one way or another whether it's because they move on, because they walk away, because you leave, or because something takes them away.]

The circumstances can get weird around here, but some of it's the same thing just dressed a little differently.

You sound like you're okay with that.

[Which, let's face it, is not something you'd expect to find on the Barge.]

What do you look for? When you're finding someone you can talk to about all this?

That they listen at all. I guess I don't have the highest standards for it, but that's pretty important.

[He nods, but he's smiling, like he's halfway between a chuckle and something...else.]

I don't think I should promise that. I'm deaf. [Sometimes. Most of the time.] But I pay attention.

Oh, crap. [Crap.] Sorry, I didn't know.

It's okay. It doesn't bother me; but I figure I should've told my inmate sooner than I did. I suppose it's easy to take it personally, without knowing. [Because he frequently gets up and leaves in the middle of conversations, and all. Which is rude, but he does it less now that more people know sign language.]

You were here before. Right?

Yeah, for about nine months. [A beat.] I was an inmate at the time.

[If that makes a difference.]

[It does, a little.]

Are you back for a wish, or to try to pay the place back?

[Welcome to the phase of the conversation where you get asked very personal questions, Elena.]

[Oh boy, her favorite!]

I'm trying to get my brother back.

[She doesn't think she owes the Barge anything. The people on it? Sure. But not the Barge itself. Not what this place does. It helped her, sure. It's helped a lot of people before her and it will continue helping people long after she's gone. But she can't help but think there's gotta be a better way than this.]

[There are more ways to lose a person than he can begin to count, which is why he doesn't assume.]

What happened to him?

He died trying to do something for me.

[Among all the other things Jeremy has had to do or lost along the way in doing things for his sister. None of it really hit her as hard as it did when he died and she realized just how screwed up things had gotten for him because of her. These days, Elena tries not to let that guilt hold her down, but she won't let it go so easily while Jeremy's still dead.]

...He's younger than you?

[It's a guess, but an educated one.]

Yeah. By a couple of years.

Then I really can't blame you. I have one, too. I think he's better off with me gone, though; I hope that's not the case for you.

I used to think he would be. Sometimes I still do.

[What she really means to say is that she doesn't know.]

He can't possibly be. He has you here, trying to help him, even after he's died. No one I know has that kind of family.

Yeah, but I'm also the reason he needs someone here in the first place.

[Her smile is thin.]

I know I'm not necessarily the worst big sister, but I royally screwed up letting him get mixed up in all of this.

Yeah...that's what I did, too. For me--for him--it was gang wars. A lot of violence he never really understood; he just followed me in because what else do you do?

[Hero worship was the root problem there; he's not sure it's the same for her. Do little brothers worship their sisters that way?]

What'd you get mixed up in?

[In Elena's case, Jeremy was only ever trying to protect Elena, not trying to follow her example. And quickly, as the more and more life got crazier and out of control, the more people he was trying to protect.]

[This wasn't the life Jeremy was meant to live. Maybe for Elena it was inevitable because she was the doppelganger, but it didn't have to be this way for Jeremy.]

Vampires. Werewolves. Witches. Hybrids. It's a really long story.

I'm not going anywhere.

[Though he's most interested in the parts of the story that she deems important. There are always details missing; he doesn't care much for history, unless he can see it impacting the moment.]

[Elena draws a deep breath, letting out a shaky sigh.]

I started dating a vampire. I didn't know he was a vampire at first, but outside his brother, things were okay.

But I come from a bloodline of doppelgangers. My ancestor's blood was used a thousand years ago to create vampires, but also to curse one of the Original vampires. It turned out that he was actually half-werewolf so his mother cursed him to keep his werewolf half dormant. It was a way to try and balance out nature because otherwise, he could never be killed.

The short version is that he needed my blood to undo the curse. He got his way and then he needed my blood to create more hybrids like him. He got his way again.

A lot of people have died. People that were close to me, close to my friends. And Jeremy has lost every single person in our family except for me.

The worst crimes in history were done in the hopes of everlasting life. But it's not often you see someone whose life is a microcosm of the quest for the Fountain of Youth.

What are you going to do if the Admiral does bring him back to life for you? Aren't things just as dangerous?

Jeremy died trying to get the cure for me.

[She's silent for a moment, looking down.]

I died and became a vampire a few months ago. We found out there was a cure and he was trying to get it for me.

Do you want the cure now...?

[Now that she has some control, some little sliver of peace. He remembers vaguely how dangerous she had seemed, the last time she was here.]

You know, if you had asked me that a while ago, I might have still said yes. But I don't think becoming a human again has what I'm looking for.

[It won't undo anything or change who she is. Elena knows she's better off letting that go and instead looking forward.]

I have spent so much of the past two years looking back, trying to figure out where to go and now I'm finally not...

[She shakes her head a little.]

I don't think I would take it even if it was right here in front of me.

[Not that he's an expert, but he is very good at detecting doubt, and even better at spotting outright lies. He wonders if Elena knows how unusual it is to ask a question like that--to ask, essentially, 'do you want to change yourself'--and hear back a resounding 'no'.]

I think the only way anyone can ever do any real good is when they finally see things like you do now. It's hard not to worry about the past, it's hard to believe that the things you knew just don't exist anymore even if you can still touch them.

...Did you know that humans--and vampires, and some aliens I suppose--are the only creatures who are able to 'remember' the future? We're the only ones capable of sitting down and visualizing something that hasn't happened, and then making it become real? But of course since we can't make it fit exactly the way we 'remember' it going in our imagination, we lose patience, we become afraid, we go back to reaching for things that are already behind us. It's a waste, and yet...

[He has a tendency to talk, to ramble, when he's in the middle of an ear-splitting deaf spell. He trails off only when it passes and he can hear muffled sounds through the tinnitus. He offers her a small, sheepish shrug.]

Why are you his only family?

[She listens to him while he speaks, nodding a little. She doesn't know if that holds true entirely, but there are enough pieces of truth to it that she can believe it. How long did all of them continue grasping at something that wasn't there anymore? How long did they keep struggling to bring things back to make life the way it was supposed to be.]

[Elena used to think she was afraid of having everything spelled out for her, to have her whole life written for her before she began. But now she realizes her fear comes from not having a future she can control. Sometimes she still struggles to control more than she's reasonably able to. Other days she lets it go and instead takes it one step at a time.]

Because the rest of it is dead. Everyone's gone.

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Є024 video

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